Rock Horse Put Away Wet

Former Philly rock writer Chuck Eddy done as music editor of The Village Voice? Gawker says so, though it says this without complete certainty. The New York Observer is more emphatic, quoting pop music eminence Robert Christgau as saying the deed is done. "Chuck Eddy was fired," the Voice's Christgau told the paper. "That's the fact. I'm not going to explain it."

Eddy would be the 17th staffer let go since the Voice merged with New Times in November. Will the Voice no longer be "a haven for thumbsuckers?" Time to order more reporter's notebooks?

A Gawker commenter shows a lack of appreciation of what this means.

the village voice is still around? wow...

Several New York media sites were passing along rumors of Christgau's demise as well yesterday, although the Observer says this is not true.

In a galaxy far away, in 1997, I began a profile of Eddy this way, on the occasion of the publishing of his book "The Accidental Evoluion of Rock and Roll," which makes excellent bathroom reading.

The big-time rock critic works out of a dark office in his Manayunk rowhouse; his wife calls it the room his mother wouldn't let him have in high school. The artwork is adolescence preserved in amber: posters of hairdo bands like Kix, Def Leppard and Styx, and that Herb Alpert record jacket with the dark-haired beauty lathered in whipped cream (``the album that taught me I was heterosexual,'' he says).

There are eight crates of LPs, three more of 45s, and, curiously, only 360 CDs for a guy who gets 100 new ones in the mail each week. He recycles, culling the best of the throwaways onto composite tapes he gives titles such as ``Killing Me Softly With Bertha Butt'' and ``Street Girls With Teenaged Depression. '' He has two pieces of exercise equipment, which he doesn't use enough, a computer and a small burrowing dachshund named Charlotte, which he says is really a rodent.

That same piece, quoted Christgau and fellow rock crit icon Anthony DeCurtis. I couldn't find it online anywhere, so here is a bit more. It will give no clues as to why Eddy has been let go, but it speaks to how controversial the elders of the genre found him.

Eddy had an instinct for the popular, staunchly defending suburbs, metal and dance music, and dissing both the critical darlings and the critics themselves.

``Rock criticism is really a case of the herd of independent minds,'' says Anthony DeCurtis, former Rolling Stone senior editor. ``Chuck very consciously violated all the rules. He took this geek perspective and enshrined it. He would put it forward in ways that were smart enough to make you know he knew what he was doing, but were funny enough to say, `Don't take yourself too seriously. ' ''

Eddy stuck out in the Voice pages, DeCurtis said. ``If he blew fresh air into Rolling Stone, he completely upended the Voice. This wasn't some grad-school dropout acting out his academic fantasies in the world of rock and roll. ''

What he was, says Eddy, was a token - ``their white, male, Midwestern heterosexual who grew up on Ted Nugent and Aerosmith. I think they found that quaint. ''

He celebrated the power ballad, elaborate costuming and camp. He praised silliness over sanctimoniousness.

One criticism of his work is that he elevates the ordinary as a marketing gimmick and doesn't truly like the stuff.

In the late '80s when Eddy was published in the Voice nearly every other week, he was busy riding ``on his anti-intellectual hobby horse,'' Christgau says. ``The thing people always say about the Voice music section is that it's critics talking to each other. Chuck is certainly one who has pumped that stupid line. At times he became so . . . childish and defensive about it that he was basically impossible to work with. '' Eddy, himself, says it was his worst writing period.

DeCurtis sometimes wonders ``what Chuck really cares about. I always like emotionality in writing, and Chuck loves to have fun. He loves to unsettle unquestioned ideas and traditional ideas. But he's so willing to do that that I wonder just where his commitment lies."

Don Allred, a Voice freelancer, added this today, via comment to Blinq:

Chuck was already coming out of that defensiveness when I first contacted him, in the late 80s. He was very friendly, and open to persuasion re music he'd rejected. He helped me and so many other writers, long before he became an editor: sending tapes, suggestions about contacts, providing an a stalwart example in his own work. Christgau has also said that he was the best section editor ever.

Another Voice heard from via-email, that of George Smith:

I just read your good piece on Chuck Eddy. Having written many pieces for different editors (and many, many music reviews) at the Voice in the past few years from the cover to the back of the book, I can tell you the Chuck was top rank. He was always done before everyone else, never anything left to frantic hair-pulling at the last minute.  He enjoyed bringing in reviews with which he vehemently disagreed and was one of the few editors at the helm of a major rock criticism venue that still regularly published pieces from the not yet established writer tossing unsolicited contributions in over the equiv of the e-mail transom. Plus, he made damn sure everyone was paid with alacrity.

As at many publications, the size allowed for pieces had shrunk fairly steadily over the past few years. Chuck always made his section read like it owned more virtual space. What was suggested added as much as what actually saw print. He excelled at teaching his contributors how to pack the most meaning into merciless word counts. For the followers of music journalism's relentless decades long slide, it was and will remain a tremendously underappreciated talent.

Chuck was already coming out of that defensiveness when I first contacted him, in the late 80s. He was very friendly, and open to persuasion re music he'd rejected. He helped me and so many other writers, long before he became an editor: sending tapes, suggestions about contacts, providing an a stalwart example in his own work. Christgau has also said that he was the best section editor ever.

thanks for writing that. i've been trying to contact him all morning. no luck yet. chuck? chuck?

Chuck sent a letter to various folks in the media and music biz, which I've nicked:

From: Eddy, Chuck 
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:38 AM 
Subject: Chuck Eddy is out of here 

Dear Friends, Publicists, and Record Label Folks: 

As many of you have probably heard through the grapevine, I am leaving the Village Voice tomorrow, after seven often wonderful years here as the music editor. To make it brief, I have been "terminated for reasons of taste"; if you’re wondering what that cryptic phrase means, my advice would be to look at just about any random music section in one of the many other New Times alternative weekly papers around the country, compare it to any random music section I’ve put together here at the Voice, subtract the difference, and draw your own conclusions. To also be brief, I need a new job now, so if you have any leads, don’t hesitate to say so.
My replacement, who begins Monday, is Rob Harvilla, formerly at the East Bay Express. (His email now is ‘xxxx@eastbayexpress.com’; I assume that, starting next week, he’ll be reachable at xxxx@villagevoice.com.) 

As for me, I definitely plan to keep writing about music in some capacity or other — especially now that I’ll finally have time to actually write. So it would of course be great to keep getting unfathomable piles of promo CDs to listen to every day. Problem is, I can’t tell you yet where to send them; in my neighborhood in Queens, turns out there’s a 10-day waiting list for PO Boxes. As soon as I have one, I’ll be sending you another email, letting you know where to send the music you want me to hear. Meanwhile, if you have ideas about where I should go from here, or if you just want to drop me a note, I’ll be reachable at xxxx@yahoo.com, an account I just set up two days ago. 

Whatever I do, it’s hard to imagine I’ll ever find another job half as fun and rewarding as this one was. I hope I did the job justice. Talk to you soon, good luck, and be good. — Chuck Eddy

ROCK ON

Doubling up, because more people who walk the walk and know what went down need to check in at media sources on Chuck. Frank, I wager this fellow would publish something from you.

http://blogs.philly.com/blinq/2006/04/former_philly_g.html

Nice comment by Don, also an ILM reg.

http://blogs.philly.com/blinq/2006/04/former_philly_g.html